I am finally recovering from the lovely cold I got last Sunday, just in time to race this Saturday. I’m pretty excited – it’s a women’s open field, throwing all the 4s in with everyone, so I’m going to enjoy trying to stay with the pack and am looking forward to the challenge.

In other bike news though, katy lent me her single speed mountain bike. I’m pretty excited to try my hand at it. The only race I ever won was the one mountain bike race I did in 2003 as a one-off sort of “all right, I’ll try it” deal. I even checked the official results the other day just to see if my memory was correct. I beat something like 17 boys! How’s that for a good start to a belated racing career!

As soon as south eastern Wisconsin dries up a little bit, I’ll be out there on the trails, single speeding it up! I'm really excited.

Ugh...

There is, as Elicia put it, a fine line between pushing yourself and stupidity.

I went into stupid zone this Sunday and came away with nothing special. Maybe a last place finish on a time trial I didn't really even want to do.

I'm sick and I have a full week ahead of me of job interviews and exams and papers I have to write and a race that actually means something to me that I hope I'm in shape for on Saturday.

I have to, in some cases, listen to what is in my best interest.

I have certainly learned my lesson.

Blustery Days!

I never really get “sore” from riding. I just kind of get tired, with dead legs and a foggy brain where I say stupid things. (Work on Monday post race weekend has been a real treat for my coworkers, I’m sure) Yesterdays ride, though, left me pretty sore. JR put the port ride in my training plan with the gentle warning that I would be dropped immediately but he still wanted me to try it anyways. Cause, you know, doing hard things is how hard things become easy.

So, like a good student, I went to the port ride with Jess, my roommate. We had a sizable group, maybe about ten or fifteen of us? We had a few from UWM including one with his backpack of schoolbooks flying home via bike train + Tailwind. I didn’t pay attention to the head count and we picked people up on the way up. We started out with this fabulous tailwind and ZIP! Off we went!

I’m a squirrely rider, trying really hard to stop being squirrely so I am sure I annoyed people (actually both Jess and Rach told me that I need to learn how to ride in a straight line so I for sure pissed people off. Sorry guys…) I was able to hang on for awhile to (what I consider) a pretty good clip of 25 – 30 MPH, but right before Concordia both jess and I got dropped so it was roommate team-time once again. We sorted some stuff out and headed north together, at about 21 (the wind did most of this.) I turned around at the 1hr/20 mile mark because I only had 2 .5 hours planned for today (Plus it was date night! A must not miss!) and headed into the wind by myself, leaving Jess to venture north by her lonesome.

I turned around and it was windy like no other. The entire hour and fifteen back to my house was incredible amounts of work with this strange “tuck and stand up and pedal” combination to keep the bike moving forward and not fall over in the wind. On some of the roads where there was a fabulous cross wind I tacked, sailing style.

I have to say, I got a GREAT ab workout fighting to stay upright on my bike yesterday. When I got home I did a few lake-bluff hills, up and down in circles on Lincoln Memorial and Ravine Road to kill my last fifteen minutes and then went home and stretched on the porch with jess, Her recovery drink smells like hot cocoa mix. Yum!

So, overall, I would say I enjoyed the ride yesterday, though there were parts where I wasn’t sure if I could stay up But I did it!!

More Racing, and a Ban on Anorexia!

In this picture am I harassing JR or Deans car?

Raced in Indiana last weekend. It was the weekend of knee warmers not staying up. Or only my right one. I guess its okay because I cracked the scab (gross I know!) on my knee every race and ended up pulling it down a bit anyways to let my knee breath.

Jon came down with the UWM team to watch the race at his alma mater (Marian) and hang out with all his old racing friends. It was interesting seeing him work in that environment and he knew seriously –everyone- but the freshmen and new racers, from the Ds to the As.

I raced three races, the time trial with Jess, a road race and a crit. I wasn’t feeling too hot this weekend for some reason, but I irked by with 6th on the TT, 16th on the Road race (less than an hour after we finished the time trial. Not so awesome) and 14th on the crash-ey crit. The crit was twisty and fun and I really enjoyed practicing that some more. I think crits are my least favorite events. With time trials you just push it until you’re done. With a Road race you have some time to try out some things and really think things through, but with a crit you just loop until your head spins and you’re sick of the scenery. Not that I ever get to see the scenery when I’m racing. I saw pictures of the course and I was like “I rode past that? I don’t remember that being there!” In particular I rode over a bridge 5 times on Sunday that I only know because there are pictures of me on it.

I’m doing a crit on Sunday in Madison for Team Pegasus. This is the first race of the season for them. We are really slow on the get-go for road season so we don’t have kits yet. I’m borrowing a jersey from one of the girls on the team for Sunday but sooner or later I’ll have my own. (Actually..we ended up with kits from KY! We could race for some Kentucky club if we wanted, but all the sponsors would be wrong ;)



Crit Racing.



More Crit Racing.



And road race! That's all of us starting.



And all of us riding. We look so relaxed in this picture!



The weather was nice this weekend but I still have no tan lines so I’m happy. (I’m anti cycling tan lines. Actually, pretty anti-tan and burn with my skin complexion and family history…I wear SO MUCH sunscreen.)

On another note, France just outlawed encouraging anorexia to the tune of three years of jail and a 30,000 euro fine. Perhaps this is because chiraques daughter has been crippled by the disease for years and thus has media attention but I think it’s a step in the right direction. Eating disorders are such a waste of time.